the cannon in the park
by walked-into-the-sky
Summary: The anatomy of the smallest town in the world.  "After all, nobody would ask out a girl covered in poop if they weren't dead serious."


So, the evolution of this fic:

I wanted to do a character sketch of Mineral Town, but then I started writing all these drabbles and _then_ I wanted to talk about how they were all trapped in this small town, so I turned to Google and came up with this quote by Lenny Bruce:

_I hate small towns because once you've seen __the cannon in the park__ there's nothing else to do._

And it was totally awesome. I come from a small town and I have never seen anything so accurate in my life. So then I was like, heyyy, there's my title (I actually underlined it, see, so I would remember, because I wrote this in pieces and knew I would totally forget) and…well, I just felt like sharing that story with you.

Now here's the actual story, which could be considered a series of drabbles and is more me writing out my headcanon than anything else. Thanks for reading!

ALSO, I don't know the Doctor's name. I read in one place that it was Trent and in another that it was Alex. I like Alex better, so I'm sticking with that.

AND, I ship CarterxPopuri so hard, it's my OTP, etc.

Summary: The anatomy of the smallest town in the world. "After all, nobody would ask out a girl covered in poop if they weren't dead serious."

* * *

><p>On his thirteenth birthday, Rick comes down the stairs to find his father gone and Lillia at the kitchen table with her head in her hands.<p>

Later he would regret it, but his first move is to ignore his already-weak mother, run out the front door, along the cobblestone road to the square, down the rotting wooden steps to the beach and across the sand to the dock. Rod's ride—Zack's fishing boat—is disappearing on the horizon and old Saibara is watching it go with an impassive expression.

Rick climbs up the railing that separates him from the rough autumn sea, leans forward dangerously and screams as loud as he can at the distant silhouette: "_No, don't leave us, come back, what are we supposed to do without you?_"

He'd expected Saibara to ignore him because he doesn't like emotion or tolerate weakness, but he's surprised when a rough hand grabs him by the scruff of his neck and drags him backwards. He struggles, momentarily forgetting the old man had been there at all, but Saibara is a blacksmith and power comes with the job, so he is drawn back into a strong chest and held there by even stronger arms.

Rick sobs and Saibara hisses in his ear, "You've got to be strong now, boy."

* * *

><p>Basil loves plants perhaps a bit too much, but Anna's never really cared because wandering in the mountains has always been her favorite past time.<p>

When Mary was young, they'd take her up there in a stroller and, while he ran off to squint at individual blades of grass, looking for irregularities, she would wander off with their child into the shade of trees and read to her from her favorite fairy tales, old romance novels and stories of wild adventure and terrible danger.

Mary reads separate books now, but sometimes they share in soft voices.

* * *

><p>May is three the first time she asks for her mother.<p>

Barley is exceptionally glad she is so young, because surely such a little girl cannot read the pained expression he knows he's got. He runs his old, spotted fingers through her soft, black hair and cups her cheeks, lifting her face to his. She looks just like Joanna with her dimples and her black eyes.

"Your mother loves you very much," he promises her softly, "That's why she cannot be with you right now. She will come back someday."

* * *

><p>After her father leaves, Popuri spends as much time as she can at the church, praying for the same two things everyday: <em>I want Mommy to get better; I want Daddy to come home.<em>

Carter is very young, very new and very nice to her. Sometimes he sits with her in her favorite pew, telling her stories about silly little things to take her mind off of her reality and sometimes he teaches her to play the organ, though her fingers are too small to stretch along the keys. She is only eleven, but she thinks she might be in love with him.

Her favorite moments come when he takes her into his gardens behind the church, through the door that had always been locked to her before he'd arrived in the previous year. It's so very pretty back there and Carter cares for the flowers so well. It's a rainbow of color—yellow daisies, bluebells, pink catmint, red roses. She likes to stand in the center of the clearing, just beside the large oak tree that grows there, and spin in a circle, letting it all blur together and create a new world.

* * *

><p>Harris writes letters to Aja every day, but he only sends one a month. They usually read as follows:<p>

_How are you? Have you seen anything spectacular? What cities have you visited since we last spoke?_

He always uses _spoke_ instead of _wrote_. Sometimes she calls him on it, but he can't explain without exposing himself. Besides, he's almost positive that she doesn't read his letters with his voice in her head. It's like a conversation for him and she would probably think it unhealthy.

* * *

><p>Very rarely do new people join their little number. Zack was the last, over six years ago. Kai, who shows up and tries to be a fifteen year old entrepreneur, saying he's only going to be around summers and he only needs to rent the old shack by the water, is the strangest they've ever seen.<p>

Karen always tells Rick to stop being rude when he snaps at their most recent guest, that he's not that much of a jerk and that he comes from a different place than they do, so surely they can't expect the usual out of him. Secretly, though, whenever she sees him lounging on the beach, his towel crumpled beneath him and his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, or lurking near thirteen year old Popuri and her fantasies about the city, she thinks her best friend is right and that Kai's no good. She's always been very protective of the little girl with the pink hair, so she resolves to figure Kai out, if only to be sure Popuri won't get hurt.

Once, when they pass in Rose Plaza, she says, "Why do you bother with that stupid stand, it's not like you're ever there."

Kai, who's picking his teeth with a bit of sea grass, grins at her, "My parents want me to at least try to work, they wouldn't let me go where I want otherwise."

Later, while walking in the woods, Karen tells Rick that Popuri deserves better. She knows it'll only increase the animosity between the two boys, but if it saves Popuri, she doesn't care.

* * *

><p>Elli doesn't know what she'd do without him. Fall apart is her first guess, cry daily is a close second.<p>

When he closes the clinic every Wednesday, after he spends at least a couple of hours with Lillia and her strange sickness, he comes to their house and cares gently for her rapidly aging and slightly ailing grandmother. Stu hovers around his ankles, staring up at him with an expression nothing short of hero worship. The doctor, instead of becoming annoyed, always laughs and ruffles her little brother's pudding bowl hair.

In the evening, she walks him to the door to say _good night _and _thank you, Doctor._

One day, a couple of weeks after her fifteenth birthday, he says very seriously, "Elli, call me Alex."

She doesn't recognize the warmth in the pit of her stomach, but she doesn't dislike it either.

* * *

><p>Manna and Duke have this ritual. Sit at the table, set a place for their absent Aja and eat a meal with her memory. They don't tell anyone about it, they don't even discuss it themselves and they <em>don't<em> set the place when they have guests. It's private and they don't need to explain themselves to anyone.

* * *

><p>Carter sees the resemblance between himself and Kai like a ghost that haunts him every summer. It's not in personality or appearance, but in something deeper, in their parallel journeys.<p>

They come from the same place, after all. He thinks they might have traveled to Mineral Town for the same reasons, too, though he's never asked the boy and he highly doubts Kai would ever come and confess it, not even on a Monday or a Wednesday. They've never even met, not formally, and he makes no effort to change that.

He doesn't need another mirror, he's got a cracked one hanging over his sink and it serves him just fine.

* * *

><p>Cliff meets a man in a white tank top and a crew cut in a small port city. They are standing outside of a bar and it's dark, as the lantern at the doorway has long gone out and it is approaching midnight. He'd been trying to decide where to sleep—at the inn (cheap) or over the bar he'd just left (cheaper)—when the man came out. Now he's staring north, at the mountain rising just over the rest of the horizon, a mass barely visible in the sparse moonlight, to put off the decision.<p>

"Hello," says the man cheerfully, and Cliff is taken aback by how kind his voice is—his appearance is kind of, sort of intimidating, after all.

"Hello."

"Where are you from?"

Cliff doesn't know what to say. He hadn't expected conversation from anyone, as no one has been welcoming to him so far, not in any of the cities he's been to and certain not in this one, where he'd suffered suspicious looks and whispers since arriving a week before. Plus, he doesn't have an answer to the man's question. He's never going back to where he's from and he's never thinking about it again, not if he can help it. The man smiles at his silence and for a moment, he swears he sees understanding in that wide face.

"Where are you going?" he asks, almost gentle now. And at this, Cliff almost panics, because he doesn't have an answer to this either and it's all hitting him at once.

"I don't know," he confesses quietly, if only not to seem rude.

He waits for the odd look, or for the man to lose interest. After all, he's just a lonely kid with nowhere to go and that's hardly a captivating story. But instead—

"I'm Zack," he holds out a large, muscular hand, "and I know a place you can go."

* * *

><p>Gray doesn't hate his grandfather, but he doesn't like him either.<p>

He just can't help but notice how Saibara treats Rick like a son—or, the way Gray would imagine him to treat a son, that is, with more civility than anyone else. He agonizes over it, wondering again and again what some chicken geek with glasses has that he doesn't. After all, hadn't he come over the mountain, away from his mother, just to learn Saibara's beloved trade, while all Rick's capable of is angering every single rooster in their coop?

He knows that Rod is gone. He's heard the story and he's seen Lillia looking pale and drawn as she scatters corn for their chickens. But he doesn't think that a broken family makes it okay for Saibara to give all of his paternal affection to a boy that isn't his, saving none for his own flesh and blood.

All it does is create another broken family, which is the root of all of Gray's resentment to begin with.

* * *

><p>Every night, Thomas watches Harris write his desperate letters.<p>

Sometimes, after his son disappears into his bedroom, he sneaks to the desk and pulls them out.

It's not that he's snooping—no matter how old a child is, a father is always full of worry. And Harris mopes, he drags himself around the village in a fog and he lacks all of the passion of his youth. Thomas misses the son he'd had, which is the son Aja had taken with her when she'd fled.

_I miss you. I dream about you and I wake up with a stomachache, a headache, everything aches, Aja, don't you understand, can't you read between the lines and see that we need you, I need you, to come home? I watch your father—he stares at the grapes and you're reflected in his eyes. It isn't right. It isn't fair. You're cruel, you know that?_

They are rambling accusations and Thomas feels ill every time he reads them. But even as he bites his lip and even as his hands shake, he can't make himself stop.

* * *

><p>Sasha loves her husband, but shouts at him often.<p>

Jeff is too passive. He lets Duke run off with his debt, he lets Karen drink herself into a stupor. It's ridiculous, and as kind as he is, sometimes it's just too much.

Once, in a fit of fury, she shrieks, "Why can't you cut people off? Why can't you just put your foot down for once? Doug does it, he does it so easily!"

It comes out wrong and she can see it written all over the lines of his face. Once, when they were younger, she'd kissed Doug, she'd felt something for Doug, while Jeff, passive, had sat on the sidelines. Now, almost twenty five years later, the paranoia of that summer affair is still dogging her husband's steps, even though she'd chosen him, she still chooses him, and has never once regretted it.

She puts her hand on her shoulder, he shrugs it off, so she grabs the back of his apron and pulls.

"I love you, you know that, right?"

Jeff exhales through his nose.

"Yeah, yeah."

* * *

><p>Basil writes love notes to his wife and hides them in library books. Sometimes he spends too much time in the mountains, so he wants Anna to know that he's always thinking of her.<p>

Saibara found one once and returned it with flushed cheeks and a severe expression. Anna laughed for days and days, and sometimes still chuckled at the memory. But he doesn't care that, every time he does it, he chances one of their neighbors reading it. It's more exciting that way.

* * *

><p>The blonde girl that buys the ranch obviously feels cheated, embarrassed and deeply insulted when she discovers the state it's in. Zack is certain that this is why she stays to try to coax the overgrown property back into life.<p>

"You know," he tells her when he finishes showing her that the chicken coop door sticks unless it's kicked on the bottom right corner and the roof of the horse stable has a habit of leaking, "I think it's very brave, what you're doing."

She, Claire, looks up at him with big, blue eyes, "Yeah?" she says sarcastically, "I'm sure my dad'll think it's pretty stupid."

He laughs, she joins him and they have a drink at the inn that night, toasting dumb decisions.

* * *

><p>When Popuri breaks up with him, she does it in a letter. He receives it the day before he's due to return to Mineral Town for the summer.<p>

_I'm sorry. I just don't think I feel the same way anymore._

He considers staying in the city for all of ten seconds, but then remembers how annoying his parents are and how little he cares for his cramped, in comparison, bedroom. Besides, he and Popuri were a fling, it didn't really mean anything at all, they were just occupying each other's time while they each looked for something real.

Rick punches him in the face when he arrives three days later, sending him skidding across the dock and into the railing. Zack holds him back when he tries to retaliate and some odd little man in a yellow robe hovers on the sidelines, shielding boxes that line the dock as though they hold his children. There's a great deal of yelling and Kai realizes that Rick thinks that _he_ broke up with Popuri, not the other way around.

He doesn't know what makes him do it, but he lets them all think it's true. It's a testament to the woman he's lost that Popuri doesn't correct them.

* * *

><p>Mary thinks Gray is the saddest boy she's ever met.<p>

She watches him as he lurks among the library's shelves day after day, his hands shoved into his pockets as he stares at title after title, apparently looking but not really seeing. She knows he's probably trying to put off returning to Saibara and that he drags out his lunch break for some peace and quiet. She's passed the blacksmith enough to know that he's shouted at often.

He is very shy, but then so is she, so it takes her years to gather the courage to talk to him. She imagines their first real, private conversation so many times, she's got a script when she approaches him, though it fails her almost immediately when he turns to gaze at her with those dark, very blue eyes.

"H-hello," Mary says after their eye contact lasts far too long. She sees him swallow.

"Hi," he replies hoarsely.

"Do—are you looking for anything in particular?" it's the old librarian stand by and she feels like such an idiot, but then his face lights up and she sees, for the first time in a long time, a hint of a smile.

"No," he says, "What do you recommend?"

* * *

><p>Lillia sees love almost everywhere.<p>

She sees it between Rick and Karen as they walk everywhere, through the town, into the forest, up the mountain. She watches them hold hands and put their heads together, she giggles when they argue about meaningless things, shouting at each other and red in their faces. She wonders when they will realize, as she thinks it's so obvious, but then, they are both very stubborn, so she fears it will be a while.

She suspects it between Elli and Alex, though Alex is very professional and flatly refuses to speak about his personal life when he visits. She amuses herself by embarrassing him, however, and he often leaves with a furious blush.

She wonders if Popuri will ever have it, as things are over between her and her summer boyfriend and Kai has made no effort to win her back. Sometimes she fears for her daughter, but then she notices the way she smiles at the sun and dances in the rain and feels sure she will be all right, even alone.

Lillia sees love everywhere, including in Zack's eyes. She pretends that she doesn't, she avoids the thought, she looks away when she catches him staring—but still. In the dead of night, in her lonely bed, she cannot help but think and wonder.

There is guilt too, but thoughts are thoughts and she can live with that.

* * *

><p>Won knows he's the outsider, but he doesn't care. He's lived his entire life in the shadows and at a distance, and he's not about to stop now.<p>

Zack pities him or something, and he tries to include him in their stupid village festivals. Won thinks it's rich that his roommate wants to help him, given that he's the same man who follows a married woman around town like a love sick puppy.

It's pathetic, but he's not about to tell Zack that. He doesn't want to get thrown out.

They, the villagers, don't trust him, even more so than the stupid boy with the purple bandana, but he strolls to the inn on a nightly basis anyway and drinks himself silly. When he's drunk, they warm up to him and it's easier to sell if they think he's somewhat decent.

Besides, Karen's usually there and he's got a think for looking, but never touching.

* * *

><p>Claire meets Kai on a Tuesday. She's covered in chicken poop and smells like rotten straw.<p>

To his credit, he doesn't comment on any of it. Instead, seeing that she's struggling with three precariously piled boxes—wool, as she's just recently purchased sheep from Barley's flock and making Zack come to pick up her shipments every evening makes her extremely uncomfortable, though he's never once complained and seems happy to do it—he rushes forward, abandoning his towel and his wine to help her across the beach. When they've piled them on the dock next to some of Won's seedier-looking crates, she pushes her sticky hair off of her face and turns to him.

"Thanks."

He shrugs, "It's nothing. I'm Kai. And you're Claire," he reaches forward, rather boldly in her opinion, pulls some leaves out of her hair and adds, almost casually, but not quite, "We should take a walk some time."

She'd been warned, of course. She'd heard it from Karen and Rick and even Jeff—_Kai's a player, he's no good for you. _

But he doesn't seem that bad. She'd known boys in the city who were far worse. Compared to what Mineral Town had told her, he actually seems nice, and not at all what she'd pictured. He'd just helped her, after all. That's hardly something that someone _selfish, lazy and self possessed _would do. She thinks about it for a few seconds, considers how she looks and smells, and agrees.

After all, nobody would ask out a girl covered in poop if they weren't dead serious.

* * *

><p>Doug visits his wife's grave each and every Saturday. Sometimes Ann joins him, sometimes Carter does.<p>

The pastor usually stays quiet during these long moments, but one day, years after their first reflection together, he says, "Doug, you are a very good man. I hope you know that."

Somehow, though they rarely speak and aren't actually friends, this means more coming from Carter than it could have possibly meant coming from anyone else. He can't speak, his throat has closed up, so he reaches out and grasps the other man's thin shoulder instead.

* * *

><p>Stu and May sneak off into the woods at night sometimes. She thinks it's scary, but he likes the way the trees look in the moonlight.<p>

Once, after his grandma takes ill and he wants to run up the mountain, May refuses to go and he jogs there alone. It's very dark, the moon is just a sliver and the stars aren't nearly enough to see by, so he falls and twists his ankle near the lake.

Gotz is the one to find him, after about an hour.

"Your crying's going to wake up the entire village, not to mention the animals," he snarls, but carries him back to his cottage and ices his foot. Stu sits very quietly, as he's never seen the carpenter so upset. He paces around the small room and knocks against everything from his kitchen chairs to a half-completed dresser. He seems unable to sit still, never once looks in Stu's direction and his fingers twitch convulsively at his sides.

At dawn, when they're walking back to his house and he's still got a bit of a limp, he chances a soft, "I'm sorry."

Gotz stops, for what seems like the first time all night, and stares at him with beady black eyes. Stu squirms.

"Just don't let me catch you in the woods at night again," the man says finally, before putting a firm hand on his shoulder and steering him home.

* * *

><p>Ellen and Saibara grew up together. There was once a time she thought she loved him, but it passed and they drifted apart, marrying other people and building families and such. Now, however, they are all that's left of the old ways, two lonely old people in a sea of youth.<p>

It takes many decades and a few dropped hints, but they begin to spend time together eventually. Her body has worn faster than his and she simply cannot make the trip, so he has to come to her, which is a problem, as he's never liked initiating things, ever. He's reluctant at first, and deeply awkward, but she coaxes him out of his shell—the old him, the one she'd known as a young girl, the one she'd been so enamored with. He comes more willingly then and she wonders if he had missed himself almost as much as she had.

Stu is frightened of him and Elli doesn't know how to talk to him, but she enjoys his visits immensely. It's like speaking to memories and it makes her feel young again.

* * *

><p>Ann likes Cliff a great deal. Too much, she thinks, but it doesn't stop her.<p>

He's very shy and nervous and so much the polar opposite of her father and herself, it's almost funny. She talks to him as much as she can, almost relishing the stutter and the blush and trying to make him see that she doesn't bite, not really. When Claire gets him the job at the vineyard, he starts to come around.

"I haven't stayed in one place for this long in—in a while," he confesses to her one night as they clean the bar for her father. For all his timid behavior, he's always been eager to help around the inn, "No other towns were ever as accepting as Mineral Town has been."

He says it sadly, as if it still stings, even though he's been a firm member of the Mineral Town population for close to a year now. Ann's heart goes out to him—those other stupid towns don't know what they're missing.

She smiles at him and he turns a bright, glowing scarlet, "Cliff," she says with meaning, "think of it this way. If they'd accepted you, you wouldn't have come here."

Cliff blinks at her and then, out of nowhere, laughs the first real, deep laugh she's ever heard from him. It's not another nervous chuckle or strangled, fearful giggle. It's resonating and rich and smooth and weirdly, she tastes wine on her tongue.

"You're right," he says, his blush still firmly in place, "And if I hadn't landed here, I'd've never met you."

Ann grins, "That's right. You should be writing them long, dedicated letters of thanks."

"I'll get right on that."

* * *

><p>May is certain that she'll marry Stu when they're bigger. After all, he's the only boy her age in town.<p>

Popuri often cares for her when her grandfather is busy with the animals. She takes her on walks through the village, often to the beach, though occasionally to the church. When they arrive, Mr. Carter lets them through the secret back door into an even more secret garden and all three of them sit under the big oak tree in the center and tell stories.

May's favorites are of knights in shining armor, princesses and dragons. She tells the two adults that when she and Stu get married, she wants him to wear shining armor like the heroes do.

Popuri laughs and Mr. Carter says, "You should talk to Mr. Saibara about that, May. I'm sure he'll think of something."

"What're you gonna wear when you marry Popuri?" she asks him curiously. She can already picture Popuri's flowing white wedding dress, but she can't imagine Mr. Carter getting married in his long, black robes—she thinks they're too weird for a wedding.

But their reactions are very odd—Popuri turns very red and begins to stutter like Stu does when he's about to lie to Elli or Ms. Ellen, and Mr. Carter clears his throat and straightens up so he isn't so close to Popuri's shoulder anymore. She looks between them, confused, because if there's anything she's always been sure of, it's that Popuri loves Mr. Carter and Mr. Carter loves Popuri.

"What?" she asks, "You aren't getting married?"

May is very young and she doesn't know much about adults, but she does know that Popuri is staring at the sky and Mr. Carter is staring at _May_ and they are both trying very hard not to stare at each other.

* * *

><p>Jeff has a ritual of accompanying Alex to the mountain early each Wednesday. It's his way of thanking him for all he's done—after all, his mysterious stomach ailment has taken up quite a bit of time in the past and, if Jeff knows himself at all, will probably take up quite a bit of time in the future. He does not stay long, of course, as he has to hurry back to open the store and Sasha is usually furious when he's late, but he talks an awful lot while they're there.<p>

He knows it's stupid and he often wonders if the doctor tires of him, but he can never make himself stop.

"Sasha and I fought again about Karen last night—I had to support her home from the bar and she tripped on the doorframe as we were coming in—I suppose it was very late and we did wake her up, which was probably why she was so angry, but really, Sasha seemed to think it was drinking that made Karen trip, but she is very clumsy naturally, she just hides it well, you know?—I realize she enjoys alcohol, maybe a bit too much, but she's very young and we all had our weaknesses when we were young, right?"

Occasionally, Alex answers one of his rhetorical questions, usually with one word answers or hums of agreement, but sometimes with a full, reassuring sentence.

"Some of us still have weaknesses."

Usually, Jeff doesn't hear, but this time, the heavy tone and the slumped shoulders catch his attention and keep it. He pauses in his rant—he'd been about to defend Karen's maturity with her relationship with Rick, but it suddenly didn't seem like the time or the place—and asks, "What?"

Alex jumps and drops a handful of blue herbs. Jeff realizes it's the first real question—that is, the first question he's ever expected a quick and honest answer to—he's ever asked his friend on one of their early morning mountain walks and, rightly so, begins to feel guilty.

But Alex doesn't seem too thrilled either—he obviously hadn't thought Jeff would pay attention to a word he said and now he obviously doesn't want to answer the question. He shifts and drives one of his boots against a rock, knocking off dirt the dropped herbs had thrown there.

"It's—," he says after a long moment, his eyes downcast, "It's Elli."

And for once, the store be damned, Jeff stays and listens.

* * *

><p>Saibara doesn't like Won, but he likes Mary a great deal.<p>

This is why, when, after a particularly rowdy Cooking Festival had ended with several stomachaches and Duke vomiting in a far corner of Rose Plaza, he finds Won has cornered the little librarian outside of the vineyard and is pushing some of his _super special apples_ on her, he doesn't ask them what they're doing, but immediately goes in for the kill.

He grabs Won, shoves him against Duke's poorly-maintained fence and hisses, "If I ever see you bothering this girl again, I'll take a pick axe to your head!"

Mary has her hands over her mouth, her eyes very wide behind her large glasses, but apparently, this isn't the first time the salesman has been threatened. Won merely blinks lazily at him and, when Saibara shoves him away in the direction of the beach, he straightens his yellow robes with practiced ease.

"I wasn't bothering her," he says flatly, as if he's very bored and has already lost interest, "I was merely offering her some of the better apples of my stores—they really help the skin, you know," he shoots at Mary over Saibara's shoulder, "Would do wonders for your looks."

He doesn't have to look to imagine the hurt on Mary's face—he doesn't even really care if it's there, he just knows that she's feeling it, because who wouldn't, after a jab like that? He takes a threatening step towards the slight man, raising his fist, and says, surprising himself with how calm his voice is, "Mary doesn't need to improve her looks. My grandson likes her just the way she is. Get lost. I'll be having words with Zack about you."

Won offers him a look of infuriating superiority, but turns on heel before Saibara can say anything else. Behind him, Mary mutters in a small voice, "Thank you, Mr. Saibara."

"Don't mention it," he grunts and disappears into his house when he sees Gray rushing down the lane towards them.

* * *

><p>Gotz had once kept himself busy by shutting himself up in his house and making large amounts of furniture that the town didn't need, but with Claire's arrival, he suddenly has a long laundry list of projects.<p>

She is very nice, he notices immediately, even when he's short with her, and she always brings him water and sandwiches when he's on the roof of the horse stable or hidden deep within the barn stalls or fighting with the door to the chicken coop. He wonders occasionally if she's heard about his losses and often stares into her face, looking anxiously for the pity the other residents of Mineral Town regard him with, but he can never seem to find a trace of it.

Usually, she just smiles at his searching and says, "I like what you've done with the place."

It's a few weeks after he completes her house expansion before she starts coming to his house a couple of evenings a week to cook him dinner. More so than with Harris, who comes only to share his misery, she lights up his dull and empty home with scents of cinnamon and butter and chicken and wine. They talk about things that don't matter, never about love or loss or family, and it's very refreshing, but also very empty, meaningless and he can't help but feel that this new friendship, it's incomplete.

One night, just as the frost has begun to creep down from the north and the stars seem especially bright, he looks at her across his kitchen table and says, "I want to tell you a story."

He sees it in the way her face freezes and her shoulders tighten, but she reaches across the table to take his hand.

"I'm listening," she says.

* * *

><p>Thanks again for reading!<p> 


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